19-26 Sep 2010: Gunny began migrating on the 19th. He made it across
the Caribbean to the island of Bonaire, where he rested for just a
morning, and then pushed on for South America. Unfortunately, he didn't
make it. He was only 20 miles from shore when we got his last signal on
the GPS.

The first week: 7-14 May. I've plotted Gunny and Sanford's data
together so we can compare their foraging ranges.
Just like last year, early in the season the Osprey are
feeding heavily on the herring run on the upper reaches of the East
Branch of the Westport River.

15-21 May 2010: Both birds are still
working the East Branch, but both birds are wandering a bit.

22-28 May 2010: Pretty much the same thing this week.

7-28 May 2010: Here are three weeks' locations for all three
adult males we're following this spring. All three are travelling about
the same distances from their nests. Their foraging ranges are about 10
mi (16 km) across.

28 May-6 June 2010: The herring run on the East Branch is clearly
over. Both Gunny and Sanford are mostly working freshwater ponds
this week.

6-13 June 2010: Gunny's still working the upper East Branch, but
Sanford has shifted his attention west of his nest..

14-20 June 2010: About this time, both Gunny and Sanford's nests
failed. It's particularly noticeable with Gunny, who's clearly not
leaving home much this week. Sanford's working both freshwater ponds as
well as the coast and shores of Narragansett Bay up near Fall River.

21-27 June 2010: Gunny's really sticking close to the nest, while
Sanford's doing almost all his fishing at the two Watuppa ponds. He may
have been back to his nest during this week, but if so, it was only a
brief appearance.

29 May-28 June 2010: Here are all the locations for our 3 tagged
males in the Westport River/Jamestown neighborhood.

28 June - 3 July 2010: Back to just our Westport birds--pretty much the same as last week, although
Sanford's spending some time around his nest again and Gunny seems
to be able to find all the fish he needs right in own backyard, upriver
from his nest. He doesn't seem to spend anytime downstream.

5-18 July 2010: Both birds are focusing on the southern parts of
their home ranges. Gunny is mostly doing freshwater fishing, while Gunny
is spending some significant time in the saltwater in the southwest
corner of his home range.

19-31 July 2010: More of the same for both birds.

31 July-15 Aug 2010: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Both birds
know where the fish is, and maintain a vigil around their nest so no
upstart whippersnapper youngsters get any ideas about taking over their
nests.

19-20 Sep 2010: Gunny started his migration on the 19th. He made a
modest 103 miles (166 km) following a somewhat unusual route through
central (rather than coastal) Connecticut. The next day he got an unusually early
start, sometime around 7 AM, and made a big push south, covering 378 mi
(608 km) in about 13 hours.

20-24 Sep 2010: Gunny is moving down the coast. North Fork Bob was
about a half day ahead of her, so they experienced the same weather
conditions. I've put Bob's track on this and the following maps (the
white track), so we can see how two Ospreys responded very similarly to
the same weather.

24-29 Sep 2010: Gunny and Bob had a somewhat different approach to
getting through Florida. Probably a bit more of an easterly wind for
Bob, pushing him west a bit. Once he got to the Everglades, he hunkered
down for a couple of days. On the 27th Bob was almost in Cuba and
continued on down the island while Gunny was fishing the Everglades,
although he didn't move far on the 28th and 29th, so he didn't gain much
ground.

27 Sep-3 Oct 2010: Gunny took a bit of a shortcut relative to Bob.
This suggests different winds for the two birds when they crossed to
Cuba. Their paths criss-cross a bit heading southeast through Cuba. They
both spent time at the reservoir (3 Oct roost on this map) where our '07
youngster Conomo spent his 18 months "wintering" back in '07-'09.

3-5 Oct 2010: Here we see how coast lines and peninsulas funnel
birds to the same locations.
As of 5 Oct, Gunny had flown 2,190 miles (3,524 km) in
16 days of migration and 1 day of feeding or waiting out bad weather.
His average distance covered on migrating days was a very average 137
miles (207 km).

5-7 Oct 2010: This was a pretty straightforward crossing of the
Caribbean. It appears there was a pretty strong westerly wind as he
headed for South America.
He left Cabo Beato on the south coast of the D.R. at
around 12:30PM. Out over the water he was averaging 22 miles (36
km)/hour for the first 8 hours of the trip.
He landed on Bonaire just about 7PM on the 7th, about
31 hours after leaving the D.R.

8-9 Oct 2010: The last GPS from Gunny was only 20 miles from
Venezuela. The next signals were from his radio, apparently transmitting
as his body drifted along the coast (the colored dots on the map).
When we lose Ospreys at sea, we always wonder if they
were exhausted, but this doesn't seem to be the case with Gunny. He
rested back on Bonaire, but only for the night of the 7th. At 9AM he was
on the wing, heading south, clearly not a bird in need of rest. I
can only assume that he ran into a really bad storm and couldn't get out
of it, got drenched, and went down in the sea.
North Fork Bob (the other track here) got to a tiny
atoll on the 7th and tried to go south that day. He aborted the trip,
waited on the 8th for whatever weather was happening and successfully
made the crossing to Venezuela on the 9th.